Are You a Hidden Gem but Struggle to Hire?

Have you created a great place to work?

Has your management created a culture that your employees love?

Is your turnover low because people are thriving in your environment and are happy to be there?

If so, you probably wonder, "Why is it so hard to convince new people to apply for our jobs?" And... "Why do those that apply sometimes ghost us before they even get to the interview phase?"

You're not alone. You're most likely what we call a hidden gem.

If you are...I have good news! There are some easy ways to solve your sourcing problems.

First of all, what is a hidden gem?

Have you ever found a hidden gem restaurant? What I mean by this is, a place with great food, awesome service, and friendly staff, and it feels like you belong there. It's kind of like the tv show Cheers from the 80s... and you just wonder why more people aren't eating here.

They're the kind of place that if they go out of business, you're left with a hole in your heart knowing you'll no longer get to experience their food, service, and/or environment... whatever it was that you loved about that place so much... And you sit wondering, "If I loved it so much, why didn't more people love it enough to keep it in business?"

Hidden Gem restaurants normally struggle from one core issue...

They're great at creating a product and environment...but terrible at getting the word out about it. They usually rely on organic customer referrals and believe that delivering a great experience will be enough to survive.

When hidden gems fail, it's normally 1 of 2 core parts of marketing...

1.They aren't doing enough to get their marketing message out there... spending money and getting their message out in the wrong places.

2. Their message is all wrong. It just isn't landing with their target customer. They don't actually understand why certain people love their restaurant or how to explain that to the world.

What does this have to do with hiring?

Everything!

HR has worked tirelessly to help management create a good culture. Depending on your industry and team, you might have a focus on inclusion, performance, growth, etc.

All of this effort is usually focused on 3 main objectives...

1. Company performance
2. Retention of employees
3. The attraction of new hires

This hidden group of employers is not the...

-biggest employer in town

-big name that everybody knows about

-terrible employer in town...

They're right in the middle.

They're big enough to have created great environments and great places to work, yet small enough to not really be known about in their industry or in their local area... the word just hasn't spread around enough.

And it didn't really make any sense to me why this group was stuck there...until just recently.

ApplicantPro conducted 3 different calls with 3 different HR teams reviewing their sourcing struggles. Each place we talked to had worked to do the right things.

They were creating good work environments and had come up with a differentiator to set them apart. But they still struggled to find people to work for them. Their turnover was lower compared to everybody else in the industry... proving they were a great place to work. They just weren't getting enough people to know about it.

Then it hit me...They were all hidden gems!

It is not that they weren't out marketing their jobs, in fact, some were the most aggressive of anyone I'd seen when it came to posting and getting their jobs out there. They were literally posting each of their jobs to over 100 places in order to get it out in front of job seekers.

They had all made one of the most common mistakes... they buried the lead.

Burying the lead means that the most important and engaging part of the whole story is buried under a bunch of other mundane details...it's not highlighted at the top...this goes back to writing better job ads! (check out this template if you need help writing better job ads)

Take a moment and ask yourself these questions...

1. Are we a great place to work?

-Do people like working for us?

-Is our turnover lower than the rest of our industry?

If you're not a great place to work and your turnover is higher than the rest of the industry, then you've got a problem...go solve it!

2. Have we created a unique environment that people love?

-Do we offer something that our competitors don't that keeps our employees happy?

-Is it our management style, values, work structure, work location, benefits, and/or perks? Our PTO?

-Is it part-time instead of full-time?

-Did you create something unique that your other competitors simply don't have?

If you answered no, go solve it. You need to have something that makes you different than everybody else.

If you answered yes to 1 and 2, then nail down the message of how to describe this. Ask yourself these questions...

1. How would one of our employees describe our unique perk (whatever it is) to their friends and family?

2. How would they describe what makes us different to people they know have never experienced working for us?

Now, put it into action!

Ask yourself...if somebody reads our ads on the job boards, would they actually walk away knowing why people love working for us?

Random job seekers who...

• have never run into one of your employees,
• never had the experience of being your employee,
• have no idea what makes you a great place to work...

don't know what happens inside your walls, and they don't realize all the effort, time, work, and dedication that you put into creating an amazing culture and environment.

Job seekers don't normally apply to ads like this, why would they? You are just another employer who sounds like all the other employers.

To sum it up....

You need to create a unique and compelling place to work.

Take a minute today to talk to one of your employees and ask...

"Why do you like doing this job for our company, versus what you did before?"

Write their answer down and post it in the first paragraph of your job ad. I think you'll be surprised by the results. You might not see a massive increase in applicant flow right away but I bet that you'll see a difference in...

-the type of people who apply

-what they have to say when they walk in the door to see you

At that point, you can then amplify this by throwing out the entire ad, moving the job description to a link, and writing a new ad that's completely focused on this one core thing:

How do we tell the world why working for us is different and better than other places?

If you'd like some help solving your job challenges just click the link below! Let's chat!

Let's Chat!